"Each of you, to some extent or another, believe that the universe
is not safe and therefore you must set up defenses against it. The
official one-line consciousness with which you are familiar
says, ..The world is not safe. I cannot trust it. Nor can I trust the
conditions of experience or the conditions of my own existence. Nor
can I trust myself. I can look at a squirrel and rejoice, but I
cannot look at myself and rejoice, for I am filled with inequity and
I am, to some extent, evil.'

Seth spoke with rich irony here, looking from one person to
another. I am not only evil as myself, but I come from a tainted and
flawed race. My mother and my father were flawed before me and I
send these tragic flaws into the future. Therefore, I must set up my
defenses in whatever way I can, to protect myself in a universe that
I cannot trust, and from a self that is evil and flawed.


Now, as long as you hold on to these beliefs, then you must indeed
set up defenses. As long as you believe that you dwell in a universe
that is a threat, you must defend yourself against it. As long as
you believe that the self is flawed and that the race is doomed and
evil, you must defend yourself against yourself. And how can you
trust the voice of the psyche? When I say to you, be spontaneous,
how dare you take that step? To be spontaneous would obviously give
rise to all the lust, passion, murder, and hatred that to you is
inherent in the human heart.

So you say, I try to be spontaneous, but how can I? I try to
believe that I am good, but how can I be good when I come from a
race that is evil? You try to say, the universe is safe, and then
you watch the television news or read the newspaper and you say,
what lie is this? How can the universe be safe when I read about
wholesale murder, war, trickery, and greed? How can I be myself, for
if I am myself will I not unleash into the world only more of the
horror I see about me? For surely human nature cannot change, and
human nature is evil. Look already what evil it has worked upon the
planet, then tell me Seth, be spontaneous! What do you ask of me,
and how can I stand upon the authority of the psyche or tell myself
that I am good?

My last book, The nature of personal reality, is a good book. It is
a helpful book, and it is far trickier than you realize. It will
lead you automatically, if you use it, out of the official line of
consciousness. You will begin to question not only your own private
beliefs for your own purposes, but the nature of beliefs. And you
will be led to discover other strands of consciousness.

The one-line stage of consciousness was necessary, but it contained
within it its own impetus for development. It set up challenges that
could not be solved at that stage, and that would automatically lead
you to other kinds of awareness. Only when you sense these, can old
contradictions make sense.

You need not say, the universe is safe, for at your present level,
that will only enrage you. Say instead, I live in a safe universe,
and so you shall. Those defenses you have set up will crumble for
they will not be needed."

One of Seth students ask Seth about his discomfort with the woman he
is dating because she does not know of Seth's ideas.

"Now there are people who are quite involved with my ideas who do
not know my name. There are people quite content with their lot and
they do not know my name. They know themselves. They are aware of
the vitality of their beings and they do not need me to tell them
that they are important. The flowers and cats and trees don't need
me to tell them they are important either, and there are many people
who do not need me for the same reason.

These people recognize the vitality of their existence. They ignore
the belief systems of their times. They are ancient children. They
may not read philosophy, but they listen to the wind. They watch the
behavior of the seasons... If you were satisfied with the nature of
your existence, you would not be here. Those who are satisfied do
not need my voice. They find sufficient reinforcement from the dawn
and the twilight.

They may build ditches or work in fields or factories. They do not
need to listen to my voice because they listen to the voice of the
oak trees and the birds, and the voices of their own beings. I am a
poor imitation of the voices of your own psyches to which you do not
listen. I will be unneeded, and gladly so, when you realize that the
vitality and reinforcement and joy are your own, and rise from the
fountain of your own beings; when you realize that you do not need
me for protection, for there is nothing you need protect yourself
against."

"Pyschic Politics" by Jane Robert 1976, Chapter 27